Why is it taking so long for James Franklin to be signed up and sealed by Penn State?

I’m told there are several reasons. And in the interim, I suppose it’s possible Vanderbilt could try to retain its football coach. If, at this point, that seems like a long shot, just remember anything is possible in the Monopoly-money age of major-college coaching.

I believe Franklin and Penn State have come to a basic handshake agreement for him to become PSU’s new coach, though no formal offer has yet been extended. When Franklin’s close friend Vanderbilt athletic director David Williams told the Associated Press at about 3:30 EST today that Franklin remained the Vandy football coach, that was technically true but also a matter of semantics.

Tennessee sources reported tonight that Franklin was returning from his vacation home in Destin, Fla., to Nashville with the ostensible purpose of telling Williams face-to-face that he’s leaving.

For its part, I am told Penn State cannot make a formal offer until several technicalities are addressed. A legal advertisement must be run for the position on Friday. And the compensation committee, a small subset of the PSU board of trustees, must review the contract on Saturday morning. My best guess is that a formal introduction of Franklin could not be made until sometime Saturday at the earliest and possibly not until later. An announcement could be made before then, however.

Now, is it conceivable that, in the interim, Williams could make an 11th-hour bid to hold onto Franklin? A little thumbnail of the Vanderbilt hierarchy is in order here:

Williams isn’t just an AD, he’s a lawyer, an expert in tax and sports law who’s been on the faculty at several schools including Ohio State. While there and later at Vanderbilt, he was a close associate of the former OSU president and Vandy chancellor Gordon Gee. Those are a pair of guys accustomed to getting their way.

Williams and Franklin are both African-American. Considering how tough it has historically been for even accomplished black men to get AD and head coaching jobs at major universities, it’s understandable how tight their bond could be. I'm told the two met with Franklin’s agent Trace Armstrong (the former NFL defensive end) on Tuesday night at the Vanderbilt’s McGugin Center athletic facility. I don’t know if all three have met since.

The chancellor Nicholas Zeppos is also a lawyer, bred in Wisconsin with experience in Washington, D.C. Zeppos has been at Vanderbilt since 1987 holding several positions including chancellor since Gee left in 2007 to return to OSU. His relationship is said to have been very good with Franklin until the recent rape case unfolded in which four of Franklin’s players were charged in August, tossed off the team and banned from campus. Since then, Zeppos’ verbal support for the coach has been tepid. So, there is some question whether he would resist Franklin’s departure.

Should any thrust evolve to keep Franklin, Vanderbilt athletics does have a major donor in John Ingram who conceivably could pitch in. His family’s Ingram Industries, valued by Forbes at $2.1 billion, is a sprawling private company based in Nashville that made its early money running a fleet of barges loaded with oil, coal and gravel up and down every major waterway in North America. The company still has a major marine division but has since diversified into publications, communication and technology.

Vanderbilt is a private university and contracts need not be made public. Still, it seems unlikely that Vanderbilt could see fit to get into a bidding war with Penn State over Franklin, even if Armstrong would love to witness one. Franklin clearly sees his future at PSU. It might take an offer in the neighborhood of $4.5 million annually from Vandy to shift that focus. And even that might not get it done.